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18Feb

Eight-Fold Path Applied Practices Pt.1 – Developing Right View

Categories: Ashram Talks Buddhism Everything Life Advice
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dhamma wheel

The Practice of the 8-Fold Path step 1 – How to Develop Right Intention

“Right Intention: Starting with the understanding of right intention, one must cultivate wisdom,  love, compassion, and non-violence. These qualities enable you to align your thoughts, words, actions,  intentions, and feelings with the goals of awakening”

The Eight-Fold Path is a Buddhist path that aims to liberate individuals from suffering and attain enlightenment. Here’s an explanation of how it can be applied:

1. Right Intention: To begin the path to awakening, it’s essential to cultivate a mindset of wisdom, love, compassion, and non-violence. This foundation enables you to align your thoughts, words, actions, and emotions with the principles of spiritual growth. it’s crucial to establish a strong foundation rooted in wisdom, love, compassion, and non-violence. This harmonious blend of qualities enables you to cultivate a deep understanding of yourself and the world around you, allowing you to navigate life’s challenges with clarity and purpose. By embracing wisdom, you develop the ability to discern truth from illusion, making informed decisions that align with your values and goals. Love and compassion, on the other hand, foster a sense of empathy and connection with others, helping you to build meaningful relationships and create a more harmonious community. Non-violence, in its broadest sense, encourages you to approach conflicts and challenges with a spirit of understanding and cooperation, rather than resistance and aggression. As these qualities become an integral part of your being, you’ll find that your thoughts, words, actions, and emotions begin to resonate in harmony with the principles of spiritual growth, guiding you towards a more awakened and enlightened state of being.

2. Right Intentions: This involves developing strong moral character traits such as honesty, integrity, and responsibility. Right intent is essential for a person’s behavior, so this path guides individuals on how to lead an ethical life.

3. Right Understanding: The path also emphasizes understanding the nature of suffering. By understanding that all beings experience suffering, one can develop compassion, equanimity, and wisdom. This understanding enables individuals to relate more deeply with others and understand their own lives
from a different perspective.

4. Right Thought: Cultivating non-violence (Ahimsa) involves avoiding harm and injustice. Understanding this principle helps prevent harm towards oneself and those around us. It is essential for the  spiritual path because it forms the basis of ethical conduct, including treating all beings with
kindness.

5. Right Speech: Speaking truth to authority can help others understand your beliefs better and respect you more. This means speaking from heart rather than mindless speech. It also involves avoiding harmful words that can harm others.

6. Right Action: By working towards actions or goals, one can achieve spiritual growth and develop wisdom. Actions should be based on principles of truth, justice, and compassion instead of personal desires or emotions.

7. Right Livelihood: This path focuses on developing a livelihood in accordance with ethical standards. It involves engaging in work that is socially beneficial and gives back to the community.

8. Right Effort: In this path, one builds their strength through meditation and practice, which leads to wisdom and inner peace. It involves understanding and accepting limitations of our physical bodies and mind.

9. Right Mindfulness: Cultivating mindfulness can help individuals stay present in the moment and observe their thoughts without judgment. This is crucial for emotional intelligence, as it allows them to be aware of their own thoughts and emotions without getting caught up in them.

10. Right Concentration: In this path, one develops concentration through meditation exercises. It helps improve focus, clarity of mind, and mental health.

The Eight-Fold Path can be seen as the foundation of the Buddha-Dhamma (VIII) by emphasizing that spiritual growth is a continuous process rather than a temporary achievement or goal. The eightfold path is a roadmap for one’s journey towards enlightenment, allowing them to follow their intention with wisdom and compassion.

Dhamma-wheel- - AI Art by Google Gemini

Here are some practical tips for developing right intention as part of the Eight-Fold Path:

  1. Start Small: Begin by cultivating one or two key qualities at a time. For example, if you want to increase your ability to love others, start with just being kind to yourself and those closest to you.
  2. Practice Self-Reflection: Regularly reflect on your actions and words. Think about how you perceive others and what messages you are sending when you speak or think negatively. This helps in cultivating a more positive self-image and helping you see the good in everyone around you.
  3. Meditate Daily: Dedicate a few minutes each day to meditation, whether it’s through mindfulness exercises or guided meditations. The goal is not just to practice but to make daily activities meaningful rather than merely filling time with thoughts of work or stress.
  4. Seek Guidance and Support: Surround yourself with people who support your path. This could be friends, mentors, or spiritual leaders. Having a community that encourages you can help spread the seeds of right intention more broadly.
  5. Share Your Wisdom: Share what you’ve learned about right intentions with others. If someone else is practicing compassion or loving-kindness towards themselves and others, it’s another way to contribute to the growth of your own inner world.
  6. Develop Physical Presence: Focus on activities that bring you joy and peace in your life. Engaging in physical exercise, art, or hobbies can help cultivate a sense of well-being and connection with one’s surroundings.
  7. Use Your Body Language: Be mindful of how you present yourself physically. Good posture, good posture (whether it’s comfortable sitting or standing) helps in maintaining balance and promoting harmony within oneself.
  8. Be Kind to Yourself: Cultivate kindness towards yourself when practicing right intentions. Treat yourself with compassion rather than judgment, helping to maintain a state of equanimity.
  9. Reflect on Personal Growth: Periodically ask yourself: “What can I do better today?” This practice helps in identifying and correcting areas where you may need more guidance or support as you continue your journey towards enlightenment.
  10. Create Meaningful Relationships: Engage with people who are supportive of your path, whether through shared experiences or a community that fosters mutual growth.

By practicing these tips, you can gradually enhance your ability to cultivate right intention in various aspects of life, making it an integral part of the Eight-Fold Path as part of your spiritual journey. Remember, each step contributes to the greater goal of awakening and enlightenment.

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30Jan

Life Advice

Categories: Everything Life Advice
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As I say, in my description to this playlist, titled “life advice”; “I do not believe anybody is capable of giving good life advice to others. But seeing as everybody’s doing it, I might as well myself.”

as I post this, I just uploaded a video titled “on identity crisis”. To which I commented “Conditioning is Becoming, and social conditioning leads to an identity crisis for many people. 30% of humanity is likely to develop some form of anxiety during their lifetime. I consider no human to be qualified to give life advice to others. But many people do. This video gets added to my “life advice” section of my website on. ajarnspencer.com
However, I do not claim it to be good advice. It’s more of a philosophical game of cards you can play solitaire with. ”

anyway, for better or worse here is my life advice channel on YouTube. Take it with a pinch of salt. Or pepper if you prefer.

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27Jan

Rearrangement Not Entropy is The Second Law of Thermodynamics

Categories: Everything Evolutionary Sciences Quantum Physics
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backwards to us is not backwards to other observers.

I have a Grand Disagreement with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, and the Theory of the Arrow of Time, which compels me to post about this ‘Matter’ (being to do with the Material Universe and the Laws of Quantum Physics/Mechanics). There is no net increase in entropy, rather, a constant re-balancing and rearrangement of material forms, within the rules of cause and effect. This topic is also related to Evolutionary Sciences, and the algorithms of Natural Selection. I also disagree with the theory of ‘The Arrow of Time“.

To Begin with i would like to show a video of a clip from a documentary by a Great Modern British Scientist and TV Personality whom i admire and respect, and see as ‘The Next Sir Richard Attenborough”, for the way he has made science interesting to the younger generation again, and his wonderful way of explaining and describing things, as well as the fantastic production editing of his team.

The first false assumption Brian makes about the Law of Entropy, Chaos and Order, is that he is creating ‘Order’ when he builds the sandcastle. he is not creating ‘Order’, rather, is only under the impression that his disturbance of the natural fractal patterns of the dunes, is orderly, and that the fractal dunes, are chaotic. This is as false a view, as the view that the dunes are orderly, and the sandcastle is chaotic. All views are subjective, and hence, not objective (false, for they are contextual in nature).

Castles in the Sand - Palaces of Stardust

Castles in the Sand – Palaces of Stardust

The Buddha did not have views, for he said that all views are false, and hence, paradoxically, the only view that the Buddha held to be true, is that all views are false views, except right view, which is the view that there is no self, and all things are impermanent, conditioned in nature, and dis-satisfactory because of that. We have Dualistic minds, and find it hard to open the curtains, lift the veils of Illusion so to speak, and see beyond our own perspective, which is subjective, not objective

Now i continue with this share of a Ted Talk which addresses some of the issues i have with the second law of thermodynamics; “The History of the World in 18 Minutes”

The video is from one of the team who made one of my favorite History Channel documentaries; ‘Big History’ which takes an alternative approach to viewing history and the interconnections between everything.

To quote this video which belongs to the staunch belief in the second law of thermodynamics (Entropy Theory) “David Christian narrates a complete history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the Internet, in a riveting 18 minutes. This is “Big History”: an enlightening, wide-angle look at complexity, life and humanity, set against our slim share of the cosmic timeline. “

“I keep reiterating that focusing on an iceberg dissolving, or a sandcastle disintegrating or a rock eroding, does not show entropy is the direction of things. The iceberg was first constructed, as was the mountain before it eroded, as was the sandcastle. And so, everything lies in a constant state of rearrangement, of construction and deconstruction (constant flux), but both creation and entropy go hand in hand, for no thing can exist without its own opposite! We see a sandcastle dissolve into the fractal-like orderly but never repeating patterns of the sand dunes of the desert, and think disorder is in effect, when in truth, the desert, is merely rearranging the disorderly sandcastle,, which despite human conditioned thought perceiving it as ‘the orderly part’. is in fact the disorderly chaotic part, and the desert is reclaiming it and rearranging it back into its Natural ORDER of things, which is namely dunes, and ripples on the dunes, which move like the ripples on the ocean, and have no permanence or un-changing-ness to them. If entropy were the only direction the material universe travels in, then an iceberg or a planet or an element, or a complex structure such as DNA would never have come into existence.”

Related Links

We may see cancer as entropy of our own health, but for the cancer genome, it is in process of construction and adaptation (evolution through rearrangement). So both Entropy and Construction/Creation, are seeming processes (false and Dualistic conditioned views), where in truth, there is only rearrangement, but no construction and deconstruction (creation and entropy).

“Chaos and Order, much like Beauty, Only Exist, in the Eye of the Beholder”.

Complex Landscapes of somatic rearrangement in human breast cancer genomes.

Algorithms In A.I. and the Code of Self Learning in Selective Adaptation (Evolution – Nature’s Algorithm)

The first law of thermodynamics tells us that energy is conserved. However, the absence of the process, indicates that conservation of energy is not the whole story. If it were, movies run backwards would look perfectly normal to us! Have you ever observed this process, a broken cup spontaneously reassembling and rising up onto a table? This process could conserve energy and other laws of thermodynamics and enrgy mechanics.

Maybe movies don’t run backwards to us, but who is to say that the way we perceive things, and measure things, is the only way things are going? A person on 520 megahertz CB radio channel 9 won’t hear what some people on channel 7 were talking about, would they? At least not unless they changed frequency of perception.

Slideplayer Discusssion Thread on the second law of thermodynamics

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28Feb

Something to Gain or to Get Rid Of

Categories: Buddhism Everything
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Shedding skin - Transformation, and the casting off of defilement. Enlightenment comes with the abandonment of craving, not with the desire to Become something.

In Buddhist practice, people try to ‘Attain’ Enlightenment. Academically, there are four stages to Enlightenment, each of those four stages having a path, and a fruit. In the thing we perceive as ‘the path to Enlightenment/Arahantship’ we tend to see the four stages as explained in Buddhist Dhamma Theory, as something to ‘Attain’ when in Truth, there is Nothing to ‘Attain’ or ‘Get’.

Akaranga Sutra - Abandonment

It’s not about Getting anything or Attaining anything, rather, more about Shedding things, and Getting Rid of Things. There is Hence Nothing to be Attained, no Stages of Enlightenment to ‘Get’ . There are merely states of existence, trapped in causality, or free from causality.

The below podcast talks about and elaborates on this.

The mere desire to ‘Become’ a Buddha, is in basis, a false view, because part of the path is to escape the process of Becoming, which is what causes our ceaseless rebirths in Samsaric Illusory Existence (Dependent Origination).

One should not wish to ‘Become’ anything at all, for that is ‘Bhava Tanhā’ (desire of becoming/craving for eternal existence).

The opposite mood, is also a defilement – ‘Vibhava Tanhā’ (desire to not become something/craving for non-existence).

Both are Desires, or forms of Craving. Desire is part of the cycle of Dependent Origination, of which Becoming is a part

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